The present invention relates to an inspection controller for performing inspection such as high speed inspection of filled and labeled bottles and the like, and more particularly relates to such an inspection controller, which is teachable by an operator so as to reduce the load of providing the programming therefor.
Such a controller for high speed inspection typically comprises a plurality of sensors, a plurality of output terminals, memory for storing output states corresponding to the input states of the sensors, and a control means for selecting the output states stored in the memory and producing output on the output terminals corresponding to the output states. And such a controller may typically be used for inspecting a sequence of bottles, which are filled with liquid, capped and labeled, as they are continually conveyed by a belt conveyor, to test whether or not they contain a proper volume of liquid or not, whether or not they are properly capped, and whether or not they are properly labeled, using such a plurality of sensors.
According to a conventional controller for high speed inspection having such a structure, setting up the input state of the sensors corresponding to the various ones of the output states, it has been necessary for the operator to determine the input state of each of the sensors and to program the controller according to these input states. In other words, the operator is required to do programming individually for each possible output state so as to set up a first output state corresponding to a first input state, a second output state corresponding to a second input state, a third output state corresponding to a third input state and so on.
In the case of the above mentioned example, the controller is so programmed that it produces an output on an output terminal corresponding to the normal state when the input of the sensor for detecting the arrival of the object (i.e. the bottle) to be inspected at the point for inspection is "H", the input of the liquid volume sensor is "H", the input of the cap detection sensor is "H", and the input of the label detection sensor is "H". Further, it is so programmed, for instance, that an output is produced on the terminal corresponding to abnormal liquid volume when the input from the liquid volume sensor alone is "L", and that an output is produced on both the terminals corresponding both to improper liquid volume and to improper labeling when the inputs both from the liquid volume sensor and from the label detection sensor are "L".
Therefore, according to a conventional controller for inspection, there were a large number of steps that were required to be programmed by the operator, and much labor and time were required for performing such programming.